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August 30, 2016
Open Thread 2016-29
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Here I think is a more useful and understandable Internet metric. Donald Trump’s children mocked after bizarre Twitter photo unleashes memes. To judge by the looks on their faces, he’s standing behind them with a pistol to their backs. Or maybe it’s the threat they’ll be cut out of the will.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 5 2016 15:02 utc | 201
The account at Bipartisanreport is headlined “Donald Trump Jr. Tweet’s VERY Creepy Photo, Memes & Mockery EXPLODE In Seconds.” But the site here doesn’t like the link.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 5 2016 15:03 utc | 202
And speaking of creepy, there’s The Donald’s ongoing efforts to gain minority support. It has actually improved markedly, as it now involves talking to actual (pre-selected and screened) minority voters. But done in a way such as to increase the creepiness. As it was here in the Delaware Valley, the local media covered it as well. John Amato at Crooks and Liars gives this evaluation:
Donald Trump makes another calculated attempt to make believe he’s reaching out to the black community by posing for a staged photo op in a black church, but it comes off as weird and unsettling.
He was surprised that attendees including black ministers and congregants at a church-run banquet hall knew his Bible verse, I John 4:12 “‘No one has ever seen god, but if we love one another, god lives in us and his love is made complete in us.’ That’s so true….”
It doesn’t really seem complete in Trump. I John 4:18 (KJV) seems to suggest that this love conquers fear. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” I see a lot of torment in The Donanld.
And here’s another data point of interest. The NYT reports that Tensions Deepen Between Donald Trump and R.N.C. Apparently, the root cause is that the RNC has not dropped everything (i.e., state, local and Congressional races) to salvage their train wreck.
In a tone that several witnesses described as imperious and aggressive, Mr. Kushner suggested that the national committee might not be giving Mr. Trump all the support he was due.
Pushy and imperious — you can see why The D**khead Donanld likes his son-in-law. The committee’s chief of staff, they report, rebuffed him . They had to take “broad view of its finances” accounting for the needs of “the entire party” and keeping it run ’til the year’s end. Ergo it “could not solely focus on Mr. Trump’s needs.”
Meanwhile, Alex Jones continues to make shit up. There will be, he believes, an ‘October Surprise’ by Jihadi Forces Planted By The Government. He thinks The Donald is ahead in the polls as well (so the appeal to the internet seems unnecessary, no?). He affects to believe “Donald Trump is the last real hope we have to preserve any freedom in this country….”
We’ll leave the discussion of how “Donald Trump Tea Party Republicans Making America Great Again Freedom (TM)” compares with actual human freedom for another time. Let’s just say it important differences are elided via some very clever branding and market segmentation.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 5 2016 15:06 utc | 203
If you’re gonna invoke and then dump on the hymn, shouldn’t some one play it? And here’s a little free education; the theology can be a little primitive and dodgy, but the Old Time Religion sure do have some purdy tunes, I reckon.
If we’re talking shipwreck metaphors, I’m thinking the recent loss of the American RO/RO containership El Faro might be more apropros. Her problem — an ill-advised attempt to outrun a storm combined with engine failure — was known, but bad decisions seem to have caught up to the captain. You’ll see she’s quite old, much of the tonnage built in 1975 will be out of service by now.
Or maybe Costa Concordia — she wound up grounded so that the local swells could get an even more picturesque view of her passage.
Or maybe the BP disaster in the Gulf — there you had a whole Medusa’s raft of bad operational decisions, made for cost reasons.
Just a few examples of where the willful blind, short-term bottom-line thinking beloved by capital kills.
Sadly, there’s no great rock ballad associated with any of these in particular. But the Tragically Hip’s Nautical Disaster does generally convey that sense of doom and decision, one that’s “out there most days and nights/But only a fool would complain.”
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 5 2016 15:52 utc | 204
200
It really doesn’t matter what the Prols think, all that matters is the Big Show until November, then plausible deniability with exit polls using the Russia hack screed, because War in Crimea is your 2017 gift from the NeoLiberal Aristocracy that took over the United States without a shot in 1998 Gramm-Leich-Bliley, (not one SCOTUS effort to block that outrage), the NeoLiberal Aristocracy that slammed two planes into four buildings and destroyed all records of Wall Street and Pentagon perfidy, (including Y2K digital backups in NJ data warehouses, ‘accidentally’ erased), the NeoLiberal Aristocracy that swept away the Two-Party System with re: Citizens United, approved and sealed by the same SCOTUS that gave Bush the Lesser his hanging chad yellow cake $4T unfunded oil wars, the NeoLiberal Aristocracy that has you foaming at the mouth over Mexicans and Muslims, over Mendicant Students and Medically-Bankrupted Elders, over OWS and BLM~!
I mean, come on, are you still pining for Bernie and Jill? You’re getting raped!! I can’t believe people are still watching this pony show play out! Anyone with half an eye open knows that Trump-Clinton are both One Party, Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz, that TPP will go through, regardless of it’s Red or Blue, and we’re On to Crimea for the Final Solution. Your SS,MC,VA will be bankrupted to pay interest-only tithes to the Fed, forever, and remaining health and human services will be bled away for a $T DOD-DHS-NSA Wehrmacht.
This is the part of the movie where Titanic breaks in half. There is no Jacob’s Ladder.
Posted by: chipnik | Sep 5 2016 17:01 utc | 205
205.
“slammed two planes into four buildings”… Wow, quite an achievement. Every plane must have demolished one structure, then – still able to fly! – proceeded to destroy another. And of course, two WTC towers and a Pentagon taken together make 4 buildings, everyone knows that. Your recollection of the events is stunningly precise.
Posted by: telescope | Sep 5 2016 17:44 utc | 206
@ telescope | Sep 5, 2016 1:44:16 PM | 206
A favourite ‘Lincolnesque’ story of the steamboat on the Illinois river, having a three foot long boiler and a five foot long whistle. The custom of the time was as the boat approached a riverside village it would sound off its whistle to let the people know of its arrival. With this particular boat, whenever it sounded off its whistle, it stopped making progress to its destination. @ 205, chipnik is sounding off, progress in covering the facts is lost. Don’t worry too much bout small oversights, it only adds to stress once the smiles die away.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 5 2016 19:21 utc | 207
Maybe Hillary’s Brain can be downloaded into an Artificial Intelligence matrix, or a cyborg body, before the Big Push into Crimea. The Re-education Camps will come to us, to cut down on transportation costs. When it comes to doom, half-measures avail us nothing! I rather think that the iceberg the 0ne Percent will hit will break their ship in half as well.
Who then will be left to hoard the gold, or reanimate the empire, or kick another can down the road? If this world is ruined, everyone will taste the ashes.
@telescope 106
Why is it so commonplace to forget Building 7…? Is it some mind trick…?
Posted by: MadMax2 | Sep 5 2016 22:29 utc | 209
To wayoutwest 196:
Dramatic what you say about Alpine. Almost all of our forested mountain ranges have burned in Southern Arizona: Chiricahuas, Huachucas, Catalinas (I used to live up there in Summerhaven), Santa Ritas. The 2011 fire in Sierra Vista burned so hot, one person said the car in his driveway melted. There is just nothing firefighters can do. Some believe, and I suspect there may be a bit of truth to it, that artificial contrails not only exacerbate drought, they also contain aluminum, which covers everything and makes fires unstoppable. I’ve lived in Arizona a long time and never seen anything like it.
I agree Trump needs a commanding lead. If the election is close, the powers that be will rig it, as they appear to have rigged 2000 and 2004.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 5 2016 22:38 utc | 210
To Hocus Pocus 192 193:
How dare you call me a jake-legged rum pot!
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 5 2016 22:43 utc | 211
Posted by: denk | Sep 6 2016 3:50 utc | 212
207
WTC7 was the City of NYs Emergency Response Center. All the steel was fire-proofed, and the building was fully sprinklered. Neither WTC1 or WTC2 fell for an hour, more than enough timevfor WTC7 fire suppression to knock outcany fires…from what? The only fuel source in the building was 25 floors down on the ground floor diesel gensets. Even if punctured diesel does not burn or explode. What caused the fires? WtC1 and WTC2 were snuffed out when they fell. And no steel building in history even with fires ranging for 16 hours, ever fell. Even the Empire State Building was hit with a B-26 and didn’t fall. They was no aircraft wreckage at the Pentagon, no engine no tail novwopings no bodies no luggage, they claimed that it ‘vaporized’…and you bought it, what a suckah!
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 6 2016 4:40 utc | 213
TheRealDonald 163
*The president of the United States has declared a nationwide “state of lawlessness” after suspected Mexican extremists detonated a bomb that killed 14 people and wounded about 70 in New York City, his home city.*
somebody sending a msg to prez duterte ???
+Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has declared “a state of lawlessness” after a bomb ripped through a popular night market in his home city of Davao, killing 14 people and wounding 71 others.+
http://www.smh.com.au/world/davao-bombing-philippine-president-rodrigo-duterte-declares-state-of-lawlessness-20160903-gr7z3p.html
Posted by: denk | Sep 6 2016 5:29 utc | 214
Read ’em and weep, Trumpeteers. Here Are 5 Ways You Know Trump Knows Trump Is Losing.
It’s hard to pick out a favorite, but I think I’d go with no. 1, “Affirmations replacing confirmation.” It notes that “Trump’s tweets increasingly seem like a man who is trying to convince himself of something.” In particular, it cites his talking up the ground game of voter turnout.
He’s right that people will be surprised if he has any decent ground game…. Trump’s will almost undoubtedly be worse than Mitt Romney’s operation but Donald needs to outperform Mitt with either minority voters or white voters. He’s doing worse with both. That’s because Trump’s gains with working class white voters are being drowned out by his losses with college-educated white voters, especially women. No wonder you don’t see him tweeting or ranting about many polls that show him winning anymore.
The bottom line is that “while the national numbers are tightening as they almost certainly will continue to do before Election Day, all signs are pointing to a Republican Party in actual disarray.”
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 6 2016 12:19 utc | 215
Posted by: denk | Sep 5, 2016 11:50:19 PM | 212
Big story…
Glad I checked before posting a similar link on the same subject.
President Rodrigo Duterte has just made it clear that he doesn’t appreciate being publicly accused of Human Rights violations by the World’s foremost nation-destroying extrajudicial murderer, liar and Human Rights violator, Barrack Obama.
Barry, a typically indignant Western girlie-boy ‘leader’, cancelled a scheduled meeting with Duterte so he could take time out to sulk and plot his revenge on a like-minded national leader with the temerity to speak Truth to Hypocrisy.
Duterte has since expressed “regret” about his reaction to Barry’s long-distance meddling, which is a lot more than Big-Mouth Barry deserves.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 6 2016 15:13 utc | 216
Hoarsewhisperer 216
obomber has bombed 9 countries in seven yrs.
he made it a point to personally vet cia compiled ‘kill list’ of terrorists ‘suspects’ every tuesday , to demonstrate his committment’ to the fraudulant ‘wot’.
the death toll of his bombings and extra judicial executions must’ve run up to tens of thousands by now.
can u imagine the ceo of ‘murder inc’ going after a foreign leader for alleged ‘extra
judicial executions’ , when murkka has already chalked up thousands of extra territorial EJK ???
the potus is asking for it ,high time someone calling out this murkkan exceptionism bs !
hmmm…
all reports on the ‘groan’ do not allow comments,
i notice the ‘diplomat’ also closed their comment section,
Posted by: denk | Sep 6 2016 15:37 utc | 217
duterte says this is nothing personal, which is true.
he has harbored a grudge against the cia since the day he was davao mayor 2002.
obama’s hubris kinda like rubbing salt on an old wound.
14 yrs ago in duterte’s home town davao, cia operative michael meiring blown off his own legs while fooling around with high explosive in a hotel. before ph police could get their hands on him, nsa/fbi goons already spiritied meiring out of the country on a plane back to murkka.
mayor duterte wasnt amused.
*Duterte said that when the FBI agents went to the Davao Doctors Hospital where Meiring was confined, they were initially accosted by security guards but the FBI agents merely flashed their metal badges and proceeded to take Meiring.
“They think and act nonchalant as if they own the place…I don’t give a sh_t who they are. Those metal badges do not have any value to me. If they (FBI agents) do that again, I will have them eat (their badges),”
an irked Duterte said.
Police detailed near Meiring’s hospital room were also barred entry by the FBI agents, he said.
He warned he will arrest FBI agents if they return and operate here again without giving “fundamental courtesy” to local authorities here.
“I just would like now to make it clear, to inform .. the US ambassador and some morons there in the national government who are handling these FBI agents that you better not do that again here or I will have you arrested…” Duterte said.
Duterte stressed in his speech that he was not only addressing the RPOC but the national leadership and the US ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone.
“Sovereignty does not come cheap… Please do not forget our national sovereignty. It should be enhanced always by the dignity of the Filipino people,” he said.*
http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/gladio/30nws-meiring01.html
Posted by: denk | Sep 6 2016 16:38 utc | 218
Roofie@215
You seem to be auditioning for a leadership role in the Clueless Clintonite Spin Machine. The panic level among the Red Queen’s true believers is peaking because none of their many scary Trump memes have had any effect on Trump’s support, in fact they seem to have had the opposite effect. You and they will continue to churn out this BS but the people who matter, those who might support Trump, are aware of this panic and poorly constructed propaganda and they laugh at these feeble attempts at spin.
Your cluelessness is apparent in your last paragraph where you fail to understand that Trump’s and his supporter’s goal has always been to disrupt the elite control of the republican party and leave them in disarray. Trump’s growing support is a reflection of how successfully that goal has been executed.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 6 2016 16:44 utc | 219
To chipnik 205: There’s certainly a lot of truth to what you say about the Neoliberal Aristocracy. What many do not realize is that most of the New World Order/Tri-Lateral Commission elite resides in Europe. You may be too pessimistic about Donald Trump’s ability to overthrow these global rulers though. He knows their game from the inside. And he’s dead set against them.
https://quemadoinstitute.org/2016/08/19/ruling-elite-seeks-one-world-government-hillary-a-puppet-joachim-hagopian/
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 6 2016 19:54 utc | 220
220
There is nothing in Trump’s bio, in his business or political connections, in his political experience or in his party politics that suggests he will be any more than a playboy Duterte, full of bombast and self-preening, as 10,000,000s of Americans are thrown to the gutters in his pogroms.
His ‘The Wall’ is the same UNLIMITED DHS program legislation that was approved but not funded, giving DHS Director czar powers using UNLIMITED IDIQNB contractors to lease lands, buildings, build Super-Max prisons, to hire 100,000 mercenary quisling prison guards, special prosecutors and ‘terrorism’ judges, and then to throw open the borders to UNLIMITED H1B ‘legal’ immigration that has already gutted high-tech and professional jobs. Read the damn legislation!
Just to give you a headsup, Obama is in Laos and has pledged $90,000,000 to clean up UXO unexploded ordinance from Nixon-Kissinger’s bombing campaign, more than all the bombs dropped on Japan in WW2, 1/3rd of which fell in Laos, 1/3rd of which did not explode. To give you a cost guideline, since I have contracted out for UXO removal services and have some prices, to clear one mile of underground-utility corridor 5-feet wide, these former military contractors get $250,000, or $10 a square foot.
Laos is 5.3819552e+11 square feet of arable land. Obama’s largesse will clear 0.001% of that land, and is, in fact, a bribe to the Laos government to let DOD interfere with Laos’ plan to sell hydro power to China, by putting covert former military mercs on the ground, allegedly doing UXO removal.
DOD-DHS-NSA is the largest terrorist organization on the planet. The Wall will put them over $1T/yr.
What do you suppose Trump will have to say about DOD-DHS-NSA, or Laos UXO, or the South China Sea gambit or the War in Crimea gambit, or the Syrian gas pipeline routes for Israeli Leviathan Project gambit, or the Saudi-Coup-Yemen gambit, over Yemen’s newly-discovered oil and gas reserves, just like Somalia’s? Do you think the ‘Law and Order’ Candidate is going to flip-flop to Mr Nobel Peace Prize?
F–k no! And he won’t touch the Fed or the Banksters who have bankrupted America, when they start the next engineered meltdown, bailout and firesale by-back, and he will only INCREASE the Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz metastasis that is unsupportable, unsurvivable, and will capsize the ship of state in credit-debt, on top of Wall Street’s gambling debts and Fed’s QEn privatization-by-credit-default of real property.
Posted by: chipnik | Sep 6 2016 22:55 utc | 221
Wayout — Srsly?
The only job I’m interested in is Chief Irritating Officer for all you data-deprived Trumpeters here at MofA. I think I already got that gig.
The D**khead Donald has been about a laugh a minute with his long-running shtick of stream-of-unconsciousness jokes and “sarcasm.” Words coming out of his…. whatever….
But, hey, aren’t they just about the best words ever?. If you like blustery, fact-free, egocentric bullying. And who doesn’t? Apart from me, that is.
Yeah, to supporters of the D**khead, only thoughts from inside the Trump Bubble (TM) at Mar-A-Lago matter. Who needs reality when it’s “America Made Great Again?”
I think y’all look pretty lame, what with making shit up and being rude, clueless assholes and that. Kellyanne Conway is spinning like mad. “Disarray, what disarray? Best week ever!”
According to Salon, since joining the Trump campaign as Liar-in-Chief, Kellyanne Conway has been living in a world of make believe. “Conway’s utter lack of regard for honesty is simply breathtaking. She seems to feel completely free to say anything whatsoever, regardless of whether it has any basis in truth.” Those qualities seem to make her the perfect spokes-fraud for the campaign. I wonder why they waited so long in bringing her on board, she seems a natural.
Would y’all please settle on a party line, if possible? Is he going to be inevitably elected despite all the data against him? Or does it not matter ‘cuz he wants to destroy the Rethuglicans?
I don’t care if he destroys the Rethuglicans or not. I do care if blows the planet up.
I tend to agree with this analysis; I don’t know if he wanted to destroy the GOP, but I do think he now wants to monetize his popularity by creating his own cable news outlet. That he is outfoxing Fox at their own game is rich with irony.
The conspiracy theory of the week is the idea that Donald Trump didn’t run to become president; he ran to become the head of the next conservative media empire….
The notion makes sense: How else to explain why Trump refuses to broaden his base of support and continues to stoke his core of racist, right-wing extremist fans? How else to explain why Trump has refused to reach out to the Republican establishment and build a larger political network? And how else to explain the dynamic duo of conservative media villains — Bannon and Ailes — playing a role in Trump’s campaign?
And for the record, they’ve just as nasty locally as they are nationally. This from my part of Gloucester County. The township had a brief, costly, incompetent, and corrupt bout of governance by Tea Party Republicans. West Deptford candidate drops from race after Facebook scandal involving threats against a Daily Beast reporter.
So, I don’t see it, but maybe The Donald has a snowball’s chance. Still waiting, however, on actual data. Abusive solipsism does not count. Bogus metrics were at least something.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 6 2016 23:07 utc | 222
222
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/confirmed-by-trump-insider-trump-tv-is-plan-b-after-election/article/2601019
Trump TV: 50,000,000 loyal viewers spreading their racist, classist, misogynist screed.
Clinton 3: 65,000,000 avid followers to the inevitable outcome of re: Citizens United.
Yellen the Sequel: In a classist civil coup, when you control the credit-debt, you win.
There is absolutely no doubt that America can reach 2020 without defaulting on its debt.
Fed will only do that, only be able to default, by bankrupting SS,MC,VA in the process.
“E pluribus no hay comida, no hay nada,” on the New USA $10-for-$100 de-valuation notes.
It’s just business, get over it.
Posted by: chipnik | Sep 6 2016 23:34 utc | 223
Northern Nastiness in the German Elections. Victor Grossman’s take at any rate. tabulated results of the “Meck-Pom” election of 4 September 2016.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 6 2016 23:45 utc | 224
@221 chip
No money for UXO removal in Cambodia? Cambodia is too sympathetic to the Chinese?
Vietnam? Agent Orange?
The weaponization of UXO non-removal, the second coming of the USA’s bombs-away over SEA.
The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate earns his anti-stripes, and kicks the can, once again.
HT => Ike => JFK => LBJ => Dick => Ford => JC => RR => Bush => Clinton => Bush => Obama => Clinton?
And we’re solidly into the reruns.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 7 2016 0:22 utc | 226
214
‘somebody’ is sending a msg to duterte.
the western msm is pushing the theory that the drug lords who bear the brunt of duterte’s blitzkrieg are behind this bombing.
so when cia take out a contract to bump off the guy, everbody would say its the drug cartel who does it. very conveeeninat eh ?-
obama the ceo of ‘murder inc’ taking up the cudgers for the drug lords in ph, cuz ‘they aint given the chance of a due process’ [sic] is of course the ultimate in hypocrisy.
besides, duterte’s campaign actually works !
drug crimes already dropped by 50% since he assumed duty barely two months ago.
in comparison, what has uncle scam’s ‘wot’ gotta show for its long drawn out campaign since 2001 ???
nein, nada, zero, zilch.
fact is , after 16 yrs of ‘wot’, after thousands of bombings and drone executions, jihadists terrorism has grown from regional phenomenon into a global nightmare. !
with jsocs operating in 150 countries since 2001 , inquiring minds wanna know,
is international terrorism growing stronger inspite of the murkkans ‘crack down’, or
is murkkans presence actually facilitates the snowballing of terrorism ???
Posted by: denk | Sep 7 2016 4:03 utc | 227
@ denk
jsocs operating in 150 countries create self licking ice cream cone terrorism……it makes money for the rich and kills off any smart upstarts in any of those 150 countries.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 7 2016 5:05 utc | 228
: psychohistorian 228
since we’r on ph, ….
what’ve jsocs been doing there since 2001 ?
*US Embassy claim that the US Special Forces are confined to openly conducted civic/humanitarian projects such as building roads, schools, etc.* [1]
murkka is truly ‘exceptional’, it must be the only country where special forces are
trained and deployed for civic/humanitarian projects such as building roads, schools
hehehe
p.s.
Aby Sayyaf have been responsible for many acts of terrorism, including kidnapping of chinese nationals, bombing attacks.
i think they are currently fingered for the attack on duterte’s home town davao.
[1]
http://www.countercurrents.org/sanjuan130610.htm
Posted by: denk | Sep 7 2016 6:53 utc | 229
an accident in mali, 2012
the adventure of the intrepid jsoc warriors,
[x rated]
* In pre-dawn darkness, a Toyota Land Cruiser skidded off a bridge in North Africa in the spring, plunging into the Niger River. When rescuers arrived, they found the bodies of three U.S. Army commandos — alongside three dead whores. One of the women had her mouth firmly around the dick of a US Special Forces Commando who was driving, a broad grin frozen across the his mouth. One report said the schlong had ben severed near the base of the ballsack and the dead whore was biting down on it like an overcooked Jimmy Dean kielbasa.
What the men were doing in the impoverished country of Mali othe than getting laid, and why they were still there a month after the United States suspended military relations with its government, is at the crux of a mystery that officials have not fully explained even 10 weeks later. Maybe, the sex is just that good in Mali.
At the very least, the April 20 accident exposed a team of Special Operations forces that had been fucking the locals for months in Mali, a Saharan country racked by a civil war the US, Britain, France an Israel engineered using the canard of a rising Islamist insurgency.
More broadly, the crash has provided a rare glimpse of elite U.S. commando units sexual practices in North Africa, where they have been secretly engaged in fucking the locals under the guise of counterterrorism actions against al-Qaeda affiliates. * [1]
right after 911 , uncle scam sent jsoc into afpak, the stans, sea, africa ..to ‘fight terrorism at its source’. [sic]
so this is how these ‘elite’ warriors spend murkkan’s tax monies …..
boozing and whoring around all day, when they aint ‘building schools , churches’ ???
no wonder, 16 yrs on aq has grown and proliferated into multiple ‘franchaise’, kenny’s army, boko haram, abu sayaf, isis, ir, is…
now we’ve the ‘caliphate’ , a supra-national outfit that operates in every corner of the panet, striking fear into the hearts of euros, africans, asians…… !
Posted by: denk | Sep 8 2016 2:42 utc | 230
Here is a link to an interesting China comment about American posturing
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-09/08/c_135671229.htm
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 8 2016 5:46 utc | 231
~ Found on Zero Hedge, what is clearly the death rattle of neoliberal economic theology in their carnival house of mirrors:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-03/john-maynard-keynes-general-theory-eighty-years-later
What the neoliberal orthodoxy cannot handle, you are to believe the Keynesian analysis could not either (therefore it is Keynes’ fault), because some Duhmerican could not be bothered to try understanding at Harvard School of Business Chicanery. Ignorance breeding ignorance – the Duhmerican way.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 8 2016 8:26 utc | 233
Also found at Zero Hedge, a rather good essay concerning the ignorance ‘of, by and for’ Duhmerica (the space between Canada and Mexico that causes travellers insecurity rapes of their persons to satisfy WOT):
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-07/america-illiterate
Makes one wonder if Duhmericans would find comfort with a brain surgeon ranking somewhere in the middle of the 99% (where the median falls).
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 8 2016 8:41 utc | 234
The Donald opens his overcoat and flashes the MIC, the Union League of Philadelphia, and the electorate …
Trump vows to vastly expand US military
“As soon as I take office, I will ask Congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester and will submit a new budget to rebuild our military,” Trump said. “It is so depleted. We will rebuild our military.”
Trump promised to order the military to devise a new plan to defeat Daesh “immediately upon taking office.”
Trump proposed increasing the Army to 540,000 troops and adding nearly 75 new warships for the Navy, as well as buying dozens of new fighter jets for the Air Force, which will require up to $90 billion a year in additional spending.
Not a dime’s worth of difference between an elephant and a jackass.
Posted by: jfl | Sep 8 2016 10:41 utc | 235
I suppose this is a form of protection from the Russians for the Turks continuing takeover of Syria …
Turkey prepares joint action with US in Syria
“Obama particularly wants to do something together [with us] about Raqqa,” Erdogan said, according to the daily Hurriyet. “We have told him that this is not a problem for us.” He added that top level military commanders from both sides should meet and “then what is necessary will be done.”
… the US will hold the Turks coats and threaten the Russians if their air force gets too close?
Posted by: jfl | Sep 8 2016 10:46 utc | 236
Why is it that we hear nothing about actual real scandals and corruption littering the colorful career of The D**khead Donald in favor of yet another manufactured “scandal” involving the Clintons?
Could it be that Rudy Giuliani Fixed Trump’s Little Mob Problem?
The optics of Trump’s largesse going to Florida Attorney General Bondi just before she nixed an investigation into Trump University don’t look good. It looks even worse when it’s part of a pattern of buying off AG’s.
That Trump Hilariously Projects His Pay-For-Play Bondi Bribe Scheme Onto Clinton is no surprise. The Rethuglicans typically accuse others of the political and moral fraud chicanery they like to commit.
He also seems to have a problem with illegals. Not nannies, though. It being The Donald, it’s models.
That Trump’s Insane Nondisclosure Agreement Forbids All Volunteers From Saying Anything Bad About Him, Ever. It includes your employees, too. And I think the family pets as well. Sounds like a campaign with something to hide, I’d say.
The fundamental problem is the “vast right wing conspiracy” that have plagued Arkansas’s premier power couple for decades. Years of Media Smears Have Created a Fictional Version of Hillary Clinton.
The main problem for Clinton is that people think she is a congenital liar. When asked what it is she lied about, most people can’t point to anything specific; they just know she’s dishonest and corrupt. The fact that she’s been dogged by political enemies and investigated by special prosecutors, the media and Congress with unlimited budgets and every possible means of getting to the truth and has been exonerated doesn’t seem to register. Indeed, the fact-checkers all find her to be more honest than virtually anyone in politics while Donald Trump, by contrast, lies more than he tells the truth.
There’s that well-known liberal bias in reality again….
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 8 2016 12:39 utc | 237
bloody hell, you have to be a real duplicitous shithead to come here shilling for Killary and post a comment where Killary Klinton is described as “honest” and claiming that Killary “has been exonerated”.
The woman has willfully and frequently engaged in behaviour (lying to investigators, bribing the AG with a job offer, bribing her DNC-fixer Judeo-Nazi Debbie Wassermann Shultz with a job, breaking security regulations, deleting email trails etc etc ad infinitum) that would send an ordinary person straight to jail.
Only a duplicitous shithead would attempt to describe any of that as “honest” behaviour.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 8 2016 13:02 utc | 238
@ BadMax | Sep 8, 2016 9:02:07 AM | 238
Dead on target that. Then there’s the other fella still braying their opinion for Green-Stein; three months straight now with only a rare few comments made without some bellowing reference to ineffectual voting and how morally glorious it made one feel(z). Neither of these ‘worthies’ obviously has access to direct knowledge of facts. That should come as warning to familiar readers – these opinions are elide-able, take under advisement and caution for salt overdose.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 8 2016 13:18 utc | 239
The Exceptional Killary Klinton
Bribing a Gov’t Official is a crime – except when Killary does it.
Deleting email trails is a crime – except when Killary does it.
Hillary Clinton Offers “Renewed Job Offer” To Attorney General Loretta Lynch “With Strings Attached”: Escapes Indictment…
excerpt:
Hillary Clinton is under federal investigation for using her private, insecure email server for classified State business. Anybody else handling classified official material on a private server would have at least lost their job and would likely be indicted.
But Clinton is not just anybody else.
She has strings to pull. She has offers to make. And she is successfully doing such.
Let’s follow the trail.
Loretta Lynch held private talks with Bill Clinton aboard a plane in Phoenix while her department investigates Hillary
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, whose agency is investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices, spent about 30 minutes meeting with President Clinton while both of them were separately passing through Phoenix.Clinton had landed ahead of the nation’s top law enforcement officer, and waited for her arrival, a local affiliate ABC15 reported.
Lynch was in town for an event on community policing.
Clinton learned of her arrival, and decided to wait so they could meet, sources told the station.
‘I did see President Clinton at the Phoenix airport as he was leaving and spoke to myself and my husband on the plane,’ Lynch said at a press conference when asked about the prolonged chat, which took place aboard a jet on the tarmac.
Clinton claimed he was in Phoenix for playing golf. It was some 106 degree Fahrenheit in Phoenix that day. Having been in and around Phoenix in such weather I am sure no one went for any longer walk during that day, or played golf.
After some media outrage Lynch tried to wiggle herself out of the calamity:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Friday that she will accept the decision of career prosecutors, investigators and FBI Director James Comey on whether to bring criminal charges in the ongoing investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of State.The unusual public announcement during an event in Aspen, Colo., comes as the attorney general faces a storm of criticism related to an awkward encounter with former president Bill Clinton after the two crossed paths earlier this week at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport.
Then, two days ago, the NYT had a piece on Clinton that mentions in passing a renewed job offer for Loretta Lynch should Clinton become president:
Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general, who took office in April 2015.
One and one is two. Lynch read that message and the director of the FBI, which is responsible to the Attorney General for its operations, received appropriate signals. The result:
F.B.I. Recommends No Charges Against Hillary Clinton for Use of Personal Email
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, on Tuesday said the F.B.I. is recommending no charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server while secretary of state.The statement by Mr. Comey concluded an investigation that began a year ago when the inspector general for the intelligence agencies told the Justice Department that he had found classified information among a small sampling of emails Mrs. Clinton had sent and received.
Comey also said this, which makes it clear that this is a very “special case” that would not pass the usually used criteria:
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
Clinton broke the law, but the FBI finds “no intent” of her doing so. Willfully setting up a private email server for state business is against laws and regulations. Clinton did so for purely egoistic reasons. But that is not “intent” says Comey. Knowingly sending and receiving Top Secret information through it is not “intent” as the FBI defines it in this case. Other knowledgeable people differ. Destroying her State Department schedules must also have been without Clinton’s “intent”. Sure. As some Clinton once said, “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is.”
====
This is what the duplicitous shithead [rufus magister | Sep 8, 2016 8:39:02 AM | 237] was referring to when he claimed that Killary “has been exonerated”.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 8 2016 13:37 utc | 240
i still have to remind myself every now and then that every president in living memory has gotten away with treason.
guess Hillary’s warming up.
Posted by: john | Sep 8 2016 16:36 utc | 241
Hillary Clinton suggested that the US should start preparing “military” responses to non-existent Russian cyber-attacks on the corrupt DNC. And her campaign has also spent the last few weeks ratcheting up the fear-mongering that the Trump campaign is secretly a Russian plant of some sort
Increasing military tensions with Russia is now a Killary Klinton Kampaign issue.
Republicans not named Donald Trump spent much of the primary earlier this year calling for a no-fly zone – a definite path to war – in Syria and seem perfectly willing to shoot down Russian planes over the region, despite the real possibility of starting world war three.
All this despite there being no actual evidence that the alleged hack originated in Russia.
Meanwhile, House Democrats recently called on the FBI to “investigate” unknown links between the Trump campaign and Russia, obediently ovine McCarthy-ites cshrilly demanding government investigation into their political enemies.
Trump is a menace and a buffoon in countless ways, but the idea that he is secretly doing secretly Putin’s bidding is beyond absurd.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 8 2016 18:48 utc | 242
Eric Zuesse lays it on the line about what’s at stake in the elections regarding foreign policy and possible world war. A must read.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/06/clinton-versus-trump-war-with-russia.html
Among many incisive paragraphs, he says:
The issue between Trump and Clinton, regarding the military, is that Trump wants to focus against jihadists, whereas Hillary wants to focus against Russia. Not only does the focus determine the target, but it determines what the alliances can be. It affects everything in international affairs. It profoundly affected Hillary Clinton’s actions while she was the U.S. Secretary of State, and it will profoundly affect the type of person who will be occupying the Oval Office starting in 2017; so, it will affect not only the future and character of our nation, it will affect whether or not there will be a nuclear war.
Posted by: Karl Pomeroy | Sep 8 2016 20:13 utc | 243
Karl@243
This type of Nuke holocaust vision is attractive to some people as a tool to use against Clinton but it seems mostly hyperbole to me. Even the conventional WW3 with Russia is not very likely because if it started it would lead immediately to a Nuke exchange. This kind of speculation tends to paint Putin as unstable and self destructive which I don’t think he is or will become.
The real threat I see is not the abstract vision of mushroom clouds but the reality of Clinton along with her many hawkish backers being successful in their agenda of neutering Putin and then moving on to China completing their vision of the NWO.
I could be wrong but I doubt that Putin will immolate his own country because of his pride being bruised by the Red Queen’s power plays.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 8 2016 23:46 utc | 244
BM at 238, et al.
Another polite and well-informed “anti-zionist.”
Ah the dread “security or administrative sanctions….” It will the the comfy chair after that, Cardinal Fang.
I believe the exoneration to which our author at Alternet refers is the long sequence of fruitless investigations begun with Whitewater and recently manifesting themselves as the repeated Benghazi hearings. None of which ever produced any charges, despite all the time, money and ink lavished upon them. Zip, zilch, zero, nada, nil – nothing.
Meanwhile the stenography pool over at CNN has wised up, at least momentarily, says Crooks & Liars.
Republicans are determined to destroy Hillary Clinton while fleecing taxpayers out of millions of dollars by conducting costly, redundant and highly biased hearings on a matter already asked and answered by the FBI. CNN’s Manu Raju openly admits that the whole charade is a ploy designed by Trump’s political allies in Congress to take the focus off him. They are trying to hide his incompetence in every measure of a decent candidate.
But they can’t do it without a little help from their friends.
By insisting that Trump deserves the same consideration as Clinton, they ignore proven, real-life pay-to-play scandalous conduct while serving up endless nothingburgers about her ‘reckless’ email. The both-sides are equal press is pretending to be unbiased, but they are being decidedly biased by propping up a lying unqualified candidate.
Not good for the country, the networks agreed, but boffo ratings, beaucoup ad revenue, dividends and bonuses all ’round. Livin’ the dream….
And so they ginger up the horserace.
Uh, since Lynch recused herself, immediately after the tarmac meeting, didn’t they really waste that supposed job offer? The non-prosecution was Comey’s call. So he would be the person to fling the mud at, right?
And incidentally, Ken Cuccinelli is not a knowledge person. A far right short-timer hack state attorney general is probably not the best authority on Federal internet security law and regulation. I would, however, consider him professionally well-qualified in sodomy.
FTB at 239 —
I’m not morally superior. “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Matt. 7:1) I’m just smarter, better informed, more articulate, and have better political instincts. I am however bad at cards and most sports.
And just what is it that you are stylin’ with your unwarranted air of nasty and amoral intellectual superiority? Inside-the-Beltway, status-quo, jump-on-the-bandwagon politics camouflaged as “effective voting” — oh, that’s right clever.
Wayout at 244 —
When you’re right, you’re right. You da bomb, man.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 9 2016 2:21 utc | 245
@ 244 wayoutwaste v ?.0 (New And Improved)
Of course you are wrong, there has never been a doubt about that. Did ‘they’ report yesterday in your universe an Duhmerican spy plane was intercepted approaching the borders of Russian Federation airspace? with its radar ID transponders OFF? and the Duhmerican War Department (calling it for what it has become) blamed Putin? and you don’t believe there ‘might be’ mushroom shaped clouds that issue from such acts. Duhmerica has been told on numerous occasions by many informed sources that would be exactly what happens. It is obvious you are located so deep in the bowels of Duhmerican propaganda that air must be pumped to you; that your dearth of perspective would lead you to your inappropriate conclusions. It is up to you to select and approve your information sources; the ones you use are useless. Loath as you are to accept and account for the complete lack of valid information of international affairs in your news providers, it is your responsibility as to whether you rely on those sources or not, it reflects directly upon only yourself which way you choose. The rubbish at 244 reflects on yourself and your choice, and not well. Your beliefs are meaningless, valueless and very dangerous.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 9 2016 2:41 utc | 246
@ 245
Glad you liked the remarks enough to reply. You might acquire a new mirror with fewer wrinkles init to see yourself with.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 9 2016 2:47 utc | 247
FTB@246
You seem a bit confused about what happens regularly between US and Russian military aircraft, not long ago Russian bombers approached the US coast in the northwest and were met by US fighters. This is just cat and mouse games testing the opposition’s readiness and nothing more. No one is going to war over this even if there was an accident bringing down a plane. The Turks shot down a trespassing Russian jet and in a few months they are back trading with Putin as if nothing important happened.
My comment can’t be both meaningless and very dangerous you need to pick one or the other.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 5:27 utc | 248
FTB@246
You seem a bit confused about what happens regularly between US and Russian military aircraft, not long ago Russian bombers approached the US coast in the northwest and were met by US fighters. This is just cat and mouse games testing the opposition’s readiness and nothing more. No one is going to war over this even if there was an accident bringing down a plane. The Turks shot down a trespassing Russian jet and in a few months they are back trading with Putin as if nothing important happened.
My comment can’t be both meaningless and very dangerous you need to pick one or the other.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 5:27 utc | 249
~@ above
Which of your two comments is real, which memorex, and to which a reply? No child, I am not confused as you suggest. RT reported the incident happening yesterday I referred giving pertinent information, your reply on the other hand had no information other than your assertion; that is a huge difference as your credibility is somewhat wan this site. That makes your assurance that war will not result somewhat less than reassuring, more like null. Do you have any direct information about anything you write? What part of your information comes from sources not involved in deceit, devastation, destruction and death (to re-mint a phrase)? Lie to yourself if you wish; take great care lying to others.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 9 2016 8:23 utc | 250
rufus magister says:
I believe the exoneration to which our author at Alternet refers is the long sequence of fruitless investigations begun with Whitewater and recently manifesting themselves as the repeated Benghazi hearings. None of which ever produced any charges, despite all the time, money and ink lavished upon them
yeah, rufus, thank god we(you) live in a country founded on the rule of law, or,
in pukka,
‘if you believe it, it’s not a lie’
Posted by: john | Sep 9 2016 9:18 utc | 251
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clintons-six-foreign-policy-catastrophes/5509543
Hillary Clinton at every campaign debate says “I have a better track-record,” and that she’s “a progressive who gets things done.” Here’s what she has actually done, when she was Secretary of State; here’s her track-record when she actually had executive responsibility for U.S. foreign-affairs. This will display her real values, not just her claimed values:
SUMMARY OF THE CASE TO BE PRESENTED
The central-American nation of Honduras is ruled today by an extremist far-right government, a fascist junta-imposed government, because of what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did in 2009. The lives of all but the top 0.001% of the population there are hell because of this.
The matter in Haiti was similar but less dramatic, and so it received even less attention from the U.S. Press.
Furthermore, under Secretary of State Clinton, failures at the U.S. Department of State also caused the basis for a hatred of the United States to soar in Afghanistan after the U.S. has drawn down its troops there. This failure, too, has received little coverage in the U.S. press, but our nation will be paying heavily for it long-term.
Hillary Clinton was the Administration’s leading proponent of regime-change, overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. That worked out disastrously.
Clinton was also the Secretary of State when the 2006-2010 drought was causing massive relocations of population in Syria and U.S. State Department cables passed along up the chain of command the Assad government’s urgent request for aid from foreign governments to help farmers stave off starvation. The Clinton State Department ignored the requests and treated this as an opportunity to foment revolution there. It wasn’t only the Arab Spring, in Syria, that led to the demonstrations against Assad there. Sunni jihadist fighters streamed into Syria, backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. The U.S. was, in effect, assisting jihadists to oust the non-sectarian, secular Shiite leader of Syria and replace him with a fundamentalist Sunni dictator.
The groundwork for a coup d’etat in Ukraine was laid by Hillary Clinton, when she made her State Department’s official spokesperson Victoria Nuland, who had been the chief foreign-affairs advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Nuland then became the organizer of the 20 February 2014 coup in Ukraine, which replaced a neutralist leader of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, with a rabidly anti-Russian U.S. puppet, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and a bloody civil war. Nuland is obsessed with hatred of Russia.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 9 2016 10:59 utc | 252
– You should change your name to Rufus Dershowitz
“I’m not morally superior.”
Rufus Dershowitz says, and then immediately posts a quote from the bible to demonstrate that despite just having claimed the opposite, he does actually view himself as morally superior. This despite all the lies, evasion and halftruths. Rufus Dershowitz considers lies, evasions and half truths to be Pluses not minuses
And then just to underline his own view of himself as superior, despite having just claimed not to be, Rufus Dershowitz states
I’m just smarter, better informed, more articulate, and have better political instincts.
tsk tsk, Rufus Dershowitz, you neglected to tell us all how humble you are
but what you really meant was
“I think I’m smarter, willing to play fast and loose with the facts, more willing to lie, and am better at outright hypocrisy than you amateurs”
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 9 2016 11:10 utc | 253
Killary Klinton’s Ukraine Problem
http://www.progressivepress.net/hillary-clintons-ukraine-problem-2/
Killary Klinton claims her experience in foreign policy makes her a better candidate for the U.S. Presidency. Media outlets and voters who understand ‘foreign policy’ is one of the most important issues in this election, are checking up on her claim, and it does not look good.
Mrs. Klinton has been receiving some criticism for her Honduras policy. She openly admits to supporting the current Honduras Government that came to power after the 2009 military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Unfortunately, supporting fascistic coup governments was a pattern during her tenure as a Secretary of State.
What happened in Ukraine?
Hillary and Bill Klinton run the Klinton Foundation, established by the couple. The foundation accepts monetary donations from foreign donors, amassing to billions of dollars. Some of the top donors of the foundation were Ukrainian oligarchs. One of them, Victor Pinchuk, was a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament and a strong advocate of Neoliberalism in Ukraine.
Pinchuk became wealthy during chaotic privatization of large state enterprises after the country’s separation from the Soviet Union.
In return, the Klinton Global Initiative which is a wing of the Klinton Foundation that coordinates charitable projects but does not handle money, made a pledge to Mr. Pinchuk, to train future Ukrainian leaders. Several alumni from this training program are now in the current Ukraine Parliament. The same government that came to power after the bloody coup d’etat.
Stephen F. Cohen, an internationally prominent scholar of Russia, explains the reasons behind Klinton’s actions regarding Ukraine, during an interview organized by the American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.
“This problem began in the 1990s, when the Klinton Administration adopted a winner-take-all policy toward post-Soviet Russia … Russia gives, we take. … This policy was adopted by the Klinton Administration but is pursued by every [meaning both] political party, every President, every American Congress, since President Klinton, to President Obama. This meant that the United States was entitled to a sphere or zone of influence as large as it wished, right up to Russia’s borders, and Russia was entitled to no sphere of influence, at all, not even in Georgia… or in Ukraine (with which Russia had been intermarried for centuries).”
Vicoria Nuland, assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who has been the lead U.S. point person for the Ukraine crisis was a deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs under the Bill Klinton administration. Nuland also served as Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney.
A recording of a phone call between Nuland and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on January 28, 2014, was published on YouTube, proving that the U.S. was already planning who should be in the government after Viktor Yanukovych’s forced resignation. The name Nuland gave in the phone call, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, indeed became the Prime Minister of Ukraine on February 27, 2014, a month after that phone conversation.
Reader Supported News journalist Steve Weisman’s report on how the Klinton led State Department laid the foundation for the regime change in Ukraine is an eye opener. It is truly one of the best investigative reporting pieces of our time, beginning with the evidence on the so called “rebel” who started the “revolution” against the Viktor Yanukovych administration. A polyglot Afghan immigrant who happened to work as a journalist in the news channel established by, none other than, the US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. “Arriving in the Ukrainian capital on August 3 [2013], Pyatt almost immediately authorized a grant for an online television outlet called Hromadske.TV, which would prove essential to building the Euromaidan street demonstrations against Yanukovych.”
The United States and the European Union have embraced the regime change in Ukraine as a flowering of democracy. Conversely, what replaced the ousted government was another authoritarian dictum which included Neo-Nazi Parties such as Svaboda and the Right Sector. Although, Yatsenuyk’s Fatherland Party controls the majority of the posts in the Ukraine’s parliament, and Svoboda Neo-Nazi leader Oleh Tyahnybok was not granted a major cabinet post, members of Svoboda and the Right Sector occupy key positions in the areas of Defense, Law Enforcement, Education and Economic Affairs.
So far the conflict has already killed over 6,500 and displaced at least 1.4m Ukrainians, and it still goes on.
Killary Klinton seems to pivot to the left on domestic issues, after massive pressure from the Democratic Party’s liberal base, yet, she stands out on foreign policy as more hawkish than some of her GOP rivals, even stoking fears that she’s ready to put the U.S. on a warpath with Russia.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 9 2016 11:18 utc | 254
@ BadMax | Sep 9, 2016 7:10:49 AM | 253
Rufus was the one for whom ‘anal retentive’ was denoted – someone naturally full of themselves (and the shite ostensibly passing through).
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 9 2016 11:55 utc | 255
“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Matt. 11:15. Ask me about my immense humility, I’m quite proud of it.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 9 2016 11:59 utc | 256
Anal retentive says Wiki — “such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others…. orderliness, stubbornness, a compulsion for control.”
I wouldn’t count it an obsession, but I do love annoying our fact-free bloviators, and am fairly stubborn. But apart from producing very attractive documents, no compulsion for order or control.
I decline to speculate on the precise pathologies of the hate-filled psyches who seek to trouble me.
I would think of myself more as William Kuntsler or Clarence Darrow, friend of the downtrodden, rather than conservative counsel to Klaus von Bulow.
Posted by: rufus magister | Sep 9 2016 12:13 utc | 258
The world is ‘reeling’ with the latest chest-banging from Pyongyang, and the NeoCon ‘we’re all gonna die’ rag. But here’s the deal. This is all unverified. No radioactivity has ever been detected. Tom says he kicked dog. Inside his house. The neighbors are alarmed. They give Tom food and fuel aid. ‘Please don’t kick your dog!’ Tom declares he really kicked the dog hard! The neighbors call the police. There is no evidence at all. The police give Tom a strong warning, and the neighbors give Tom even more food and fue aid. ‘Please don’t hurt the dog!’ Tom likes all the attention, the free food and fuel. He tells the neighbors now that he skinned the dog alive. The whole neighborhood goes crazy. But there is no dog. And those missiles can’t lift a nuclear warhead. And their guidance system can’t find a target. Kim is an insane version of Trump. There is no reason for the world to be crazy too.
Posted by: TheRealDonald | Sep 9 2016 12:43 utc | 259
Anyone can see that rufus has a screw loose. But when challenged he insists that he’s been screwed just fine and he just wants everyone to be as well-screwed as he is.
It would be entertaining if it wasn’t so sad.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 9 2016 13:48 utc | 260
@ 260
That explains rufus’us’ love affair with Yves ‘Just Call me M’ Adam’ Smith’s Naked Capitalism and Bordello.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Sep 9 2016 14:26 utc | 261
FTB@250
Your confusion seems to come from a simpleton’s misunderstanding of the world. My assertion that a WW3/Nuke exchange is very unlikely comes from observing 65 years of MAD deterring the US and Russia from destroying themselves and most everyone else. Your ‘pertinent information’ seems to be a shield to hide your lack of any critical thinking skills.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 14:51 utc | 262
FTB@250
Your confusion seems to come from a simpleton’s misunderstanding of the world. My assertion that a WW3/Nuke exchange is very unlikely comes from observing 65 years of MAD deterring the US and Russia from destroying themselves and most everyone else. Your ‘pertinent information’ seems to be a shield to hide your lack of any critical thinking skills.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 14:51 utc | 263
WoW – Your confusion seems to come from a simpleton’s misunderstanding of the world
262 & 263
Whereas your insistence on posting every comment twice doesn’t make you look at all like a simpleton, nope, not one bit
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 9 2016 15:09 utc | 264
The Unrelenting Pundit-Led Effort to Delegitimize All Negative Reporting About Killary Klinton
Glenn Greenwald
Sep. 6 2016, 4:53 p.m.
The absolute last metric journalists should use for determining what to cover is the reaction of pundits who, like Krugman and plenty of others, are singularly devoted to the election of one of the candidates. Of course Hillary Clinton’s die-hard loyalists in the media will dislike, and find invalid, any suggestion that she engaged in any sort of questionable conduct. Their self-assigned role is to defend her from all criticisms. They view themselves more as campaign operatives than journalists: Their principal, overriding goal is to ensure that Clinton wins the election. They will obviously hate anything — particularly negative reporting about her — that conflicts with that goal. They will jettison even their core stated beliefs — such as the view that big-money donations corrupt politicians — in order to fulfill that goal.
But it would be journalistic malpractice of the highest order if the billions of dollars received by the Clintons — both personally and though their various entities — were not rigorously scrutinized and exposed in detail by reporters. That’s exactly what they ought to be doing. The fact that quid pro quos cannot be definitively proven does not remotely negate the urgency of this journalism. That’s because quid pro quos by their nature elude such proof (can anyone prove that Republicans steadfastly support Israel and low taxes because of the millions they get from Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, or that the Florida attorney general decided not to prosecute Trump because his foundation and his daughter donated to her?). Beyond quid quo pros, the Clintons’ constant, pioneering merger of massive private wealth and political power and influence is itself highly problematic.
Nobody forced the Klintons to take millions of dollars from the Saudis and Goldman Sachs tycoons and corporations with vested interests in the State Department; having chosen to do so with great personal benefit, they are now confronting the consequences in how the public views such behavior.
Posted by: BadMax | Sep 9 2016 15:17 utc | 265
BM@254
It’s certainly true that the US exerted its influence through its NGOs in Ukraine and some of the actors want to project their involvement as a victory. Looking at the results of the coup and its aftermath shows a somewhat different outcome when you step back and examine the actual situation there today. If you ask the question cui bono the answer has to be Putin/Russia who gained Crimea, lock stock and barrel, at no real cost while all the financial black hole of Ukraine was dumped onto the West. Ukraine will no longer be stealing Russian gas and begging for their aid ever again and the frozen conflict in the Donbass means they will not be joining NATO even if the western leaders were insane enough to want these nutcases in their organization.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 15:26 utc | 266
BM@254
It’s certainly true that the US exerted its influence through its NGOs in Ukraine and some of the actors want to project their involvement as a victory. Looking at the results of the coup and its aftermath shows a somewhat different outcome when you step back and examine the actual situation there today. If you ask the question cui bono the answer has to be Putin/Russia who gained Crimea, lock stock and barrel, at no real cost while all the financial black hole of Ukraine was dumped onto the West. Ukraine will no longer be stealing Russian gas and begging for their aid ever again and the frozen conflict in the Donbass means they will not be joining NATO even if the western leaders were insane enough to want these nutcases in their organization.
Posted by: wayoutwest | Sep 9 2016 15:26 utc | 267
Pathetically funny to read the comments at Zerobrain regarding the North Dakota pipeline demonstration. I supported the Bundy Ranchers even though I didn’t necessarily agree with them. But this just goes to show that the same politics of the 18th and 19th century STILL exists in USA
Not sure why I keep going to ZH.. a bad habit
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-09/north-dakota-governor-activates-national-guard-against-pipeline-protest
Posted by: bbbb | Sep 9 2016 16:53 utc | 268
greeting from sri lanka,
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/09/08/well-done-philippine-president-human-rights-imperialists-hands-off-asia/
Posted by: denk | Sep 10 2016 7:39 utc | 269